I opened the most amazing email last week. A friend saw my name on the Publishers Weekly Bestseller list, with the ISBN for Betrayed and all, and wanted to congratulate me. I went to the website, and sure enough, I was there.

http://tinyurl.com/pw-BetrayedbyJLH

And then I was told of the layout in the PW print magazine with my cover and the first few sentences of Betrayed.

Isn’t that just beautiful? I put it on my blog, I told friends, my wonderful hubby bragged to everyone he knew.

But through it all, there was a level of disbelief. How did I make this list for a book that was released a year ago? The release of Cursed was two months ago, so while people might want the beginning of the series, would they suddenly go buy the book all in this one week? And if people did, we had a hard time keeping Betrayed in stock for my booksigning. Would the book be available in the stores in the numbers necessary to make the Publishers Weekly Bestseller List for the week of January 26, 2009?

I was advised anywhere from letting it go to enjoy the spotlight and wait to see if Publishers Weekly printed a retraction.

I found these options too difficult. This was a first, my first, so if by some miracle Betrayed deserved to be on the list, I wanted to enjoy it to the fullest measure. I didn’t want doubt to dim the excitement building all around it.

And if Betrayed was not legitimately listed, then I would be coasting by on a falsehood. Am I capable of lying? Just as well as the next person. But I hate it. I hate the guilt and the feeling that by promoting anything false, I am choosing to make myself less than the kind of person I want to be.

Now, does this mean I feel horrible about writing fiction? No. Fiction is a lie designed to show inner truths of human strength and emotion and both writers and readers enter the story with a tacit agreement to lie and be lied to for entertainment and education. Like watching a movie or sitting around the campfire and telling ghost stories.

Neither do I balk at poking my kids in the side and when they whirl around, I blame their dad. That’s just fun. But also, another instance where everyone knows the real truth.

I wanted to enjoy my miracle, but if it wasn’t mine, I wanted to know and be honest. And then there’s the fact of the unsuspecting author who wasn’t allowed his chance to celebrate. How fair was that?

So, I wrote Publishers Weekly and asked for the truth. Did Betrayed belong on the list?

The answer is: No.

Whose spot did I take?

John Lescroart with his new release, Betrayal.

When Dismas Hardy agrees to clean up the caseload of recently disappeared attorney Charlie Bowen, he thinks it will be easy. But one of the cases is far from small-time…

Congratulations, John!!

* Please stay tuned as I bring you more information this week. And thank you all for your kind thoughts and support and congratulations during this roller coaster.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.